A nation without education is little more than a gathering of “apes and monkeys,” at least according to an embittered statement made by Dr. Atta-ur-Rahman, president of Pakistan’s Academy of Sciences and former president of Pakistan’s Higher Education Committee.
While scathing, this sentiment is also sadly indicative of growing frustration over the dismal state of Pakistan’s education system.
Situated in the northwest corner of the Indian subcontinent, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan occupies a position of historic importance. Its strategic location, its role in the birth of civilization, and its influence as a crossroads of political and religious ideologies have kept it at the forefront of world events. Geographically, present-day Pakistan has long been a gateway between Eurasia and the subcontinent and between East and West. Its culture and history have been enriched by the countless invaders, traders, and settlers who have been a part of the region’s past. Some, like Alexander the Great and his army, merely passed through but left a lasting mark. Others, such as the Arab armies spreading the word of Islam and the British who imposed the ways of the West, became an integral part of the region’s culture and character. Some of humankind’s greatest works of art and architecture, of verse and word, were created here. Today the region again has taken an outsized role on the world stage: It is a linchpin in the global struggle against terrorism, a cauldron in the heated conflict between secular and theocratic rule, a poster nation for the struggle between autocracy and democracy, and a nuclear power whose relations with its neighbor India have made this one of the most unstable regions in the world.
Pakistan Affairs Notes
by Dr. Moiz Khan (Assistant Professor)
Dept. of History, University of Karachi
In 1600 C.E. East India Company was established in England. Queen Elizabeth granted the charter to East India Company to trade in areas East of Africa. This included Sub-continent, Indonesia, and Malaysia etc. In the start the East India Company tried their luck in islands of Indonesia but they were unable to extract desirable profits from there. To make trading more difficult they had a formidable opposition in the form of Dutch. The Islands of Indonesia were already claimed by Dutch and Portuguese. In 1623 an incident permanently convinced British to turn towards India. Twenty one men were killed by Dutch in Amboyna out of which ten were the servants of British East India Company, the incident in known as Amboyna Massacre.